New Cookbooks for a New Year

Happy New Year ten days in! (better late than never?) Anyway, here's to your better health and fitness in 2012! Following that idea, I FINALLY made a New Year's resolution/pledge to my personal better health in 2012 (and my family's) by pledging to planning menus and trying new, healthy recipes. I aim to plan a number of recipes on Sunday of each week, attempt to better use what I have on hand (less waste in 2012!) and make a shopping list so that I don't have to make trips to the grocery store each day after work.

I did get a number of new cookbooks over the holidays that I plan to work from- besides my favourite magazine, Cooking Light and issues of Weight Watchers magazine. I have a couple other new cookbooks not pictured (am I a cookbook junkie or what, eh?), a new Clean Eating one from my sister given to me on my birthday in November and a healthy eating one by Canadian Living from our school library fundraiser.

I had a rather fattening Christmas holiday, making many of my recipes from Martha Stewart's holiday issue and this magazine from our liquor store (eep!):

Of my recipes that I planned this past Sunday, I made Potatoes, Leeks and Carrots in Parchment from Martha Stewart's Food Everyday Light (with the yellow cover above). I skipped the optional butter and the veggies were tender crisp and tasty anyway. My family ate most of it (saw some leek bits left behind) and it was very easy. The picture looks a little bland. It was prettier in real life! I didn't have any thyme (no joke there), so that would have added a little something, something to it, too, I'm sure. One serving worked out to 3 points plus.

I also made one crockpot recipe: Chicken Tortilla Soup from the Williams-Sonoma The New Slow Cooker Cookbook. I really enjoyed it, and even my dubious family liked it overall. Only dd11 was not enamored, though even she ate quite a bit of it. I cut back on the jalapeno pepper a little (using 1/2 of one as opposed to the 1-2 suggested) and I used fire-roasted tomatoes, instead of regular canned ones. I loved the addition of avocado (mmmmm...avocado!), but my family wouldn't try it or the cilantro (my picky dh influences my children with his dislike of certain foods, but our hamster also didn't like cilantro, so dd11 was influenced by him. True story! ;) )

I guesstimated the soup to be around 8-9 points plus with the avocado, corn and the shredded chicken. The chips are extra, of course!

Finally, from Cooking Light's new The Complete Quick Cook, I tried Pork Medallions with Port Wine-Dried Cherry Pan Sauce. It was delicious! So delicious that I forgot to take a picture of it! oops! I did snap the following pic while I was cooking it. I followed the recipe exactly, except that I used regular red wine (not sweet or port) and I cooked the pork medallions longer than suggested in the recipe. The instructions were a little vague for my liking in that regard, suggesting it done on "low temperature." I did it on medium.

My family liked it, too, though no one really gave the sauce a fair shot- dh said it "wasn't bad" but he'd already slathered his with his beloved HP sauce. lol. The sauce was delicous. Trust me! Well worth the 9 points for 4 medallians and 2 tbsp of delicious sauce. :)